


wanna see what's under that attitude

by acezukos (purplefennels7), snowandfire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: First Meetings, Flirting, M/M, Tea shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26297797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/pseuds/acezukos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowandfire/pseuds/snowandfire
Summary: [“Do you even have a job?” Jeong Jeong says. “How are you possibly affording this much tea?” The overly-frequent customer looks up at him, and then a little smirk curves the edge of his mouth.“Wouldn’t you like to know tea boy?”]or: tea shop pianjeong
Relationships: Jeong Jeong/Piandao (Avatar)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 131
Collections: The Piandao Library





	wanna see what's under that attitude

**Author's Note:**

> we tried to write a drabble at the same time and this ficlet came out. behold: the tea shop au except make it pianjeong
> 
> title from "i think he knows" by taylor swift

Jeong Jeong doesn’t know why he takes the job at the tea shop. Maybe he’s super bored. Maybe he just wants to be a normal kid for once - as much as one can be a  _ normal kid _ when you’re the Fire Nation’s prodigy. A different haircut goes a long way, though, and it has the bonus of hiding his scars. No one seems to recognize him in the long robe and apron, except as someone to snap their fingers at and ask  _ can he make this hotter _ even though it’s already boiling.

And that’s the problem with the whole thing: the  _ customers. _ It takes exactly one day for him to conclude that if this is what being a normal kid is like, he’d rather pass. Whether it’s the over-dressed women who take up three of the tables in the corner for hours and don’t even bother to clean up their mess, or the person who keeps claiming their tea is too strong until he gives them a cup of hot water that they pronounce ‘ _ impeccable,’ _ it’s just all bad. 

He doesn’t quit, though. For some reason. It’s something to do with his day, at least, instead of loitering around on the street. It’s also an exercise in self-restraint of sorts - not setting customers on fire, because apparently that would be ‘bad for business.’

The customers are bad for his sanity, that’s what. But, ‘bad for business,’ sure. In any case, when he sneaks out of his apartment in the middle of the night to practice bending, imagining punching fire at the entitled noble of the day does tend to be cathartic.

Funnily enough, the customer that finally threatens to break him isn’t even a bad one. Quite the opposite, in fact.

He shows up for the first time on a perfectly normal day - if a little busy - and sits at the table in the corner closest to the kitchen and orders a perfectly normal cup of oolong. Jeong Jeong jots down the order and glances up from his notepad long enough to give the customer a practiced look. It’s not quite a smile, and his manager has given up on trying to make it one, but it’s better than the full-on resting glare he’d started out with.

And then he  _ stops, _ because smiling back at him across the table is quite possibly the prettiest boy he’s ever seen, and it’s only years of practice at  _ control _ that he doesn’t light something on fire right there.

“Maybe lemon, if you have it?” he says, and his voice feels like a caress. Jeong Jeong clenches his hands around the edges of his pen and paper because he can feel the sparks itching at the tips of his fingers.

“I’ll - look,” he manages to say, and he  _ does not flee, _ he doesn’t, just quickly turns his back and walks a little faster than normal to the back room. 

“You okay, Lee?” one of his coworkers says as he practically blows through the curtain separating the two spaces.

“Fine. One oolong,” he snaps out, making a beeline for the cooler and starting to rummage for the promised fruit, the cool air a balm to the blush he knows must be flaming on his face. 

“Alright, spirits, you don’t need to be like that about it.” 

None of his coworkers really like him. Not that he really wants them to; he tolerates them at best, but it makes for something of an awkward working environment. 

Some days he thinks he should make more of an effort to be nice, but right now he can’t be bothered. The lemon. That’s what he needs to be focusing on right now. Cutting up this lemon, and not setting the bamboo board on fire.

By some miracle he succeeds at both, even though he has to hastily smudge out an ember that jumps from his little finger when the boy’s kind brown eyes pop into his head. He grabs the steaming teacup that’s appeared next to his elbow and hooks a lemon slice over the edge, then hurries back out as quickly as he can without spilling.

“Oolong, with lemon,” he says, trying not to make eye contact. He gets another smile in return and really, that messy hair should not work at all and he isn’t in the habit of describing anything, much less people, as  _ devastating _ but he sort of feels like everything has shifted a few inches to the left in the last few minutes.

“Thank you,” the other boy returns, curling long fingers around the tea cup. Jeong Jeong is struck by the impulse to linger, right up until he catches a waving hand out of the corner of his eye and offers only a sharp nod before rushing off to deal with what turns out to be a broken cup.

It turns out that he needn’t have thought about lingering, because the boy stays for nearly three hours, intermittently flagging him down for a refill and a new lemon slice but otherwise seeming content to sit and watch people come in and out. Jeong Jeong feels oddly disappointed when he comes out of the back room to find his table empty, which is stupid because they’d exchanged about ten words in total.

He’s left an overly large pile of coins behind, though, even for the number of drinks he’d ordered. That has to count for something.

Jeong Jeong shakes his head, trying to put the image of his smile out of his mind as he sweeps up the money and starts wiping the table down. He’s never going to see him again, anyway.

He’s proven suddenly and emphatically wrong the next day at about the same time, and his traitor heart skips a beat as the boy sits down at the same table as yesterday and grins at him. He even asks for the same order, but with orange instead of lemon.

And then it happens the next day.

And the next - lemon again, that time.

And the next - orange, today.

It takes a week before Jeong Jeong finally has enough. He’s just coming in, every day, and sitting there for hours, and drinking far too much tea and making him feel weird and too warm every time he looks at him.

He comes in right after Jeong Jeong comes back from his break, and this time, instead of walking away right after dropping off his order, he stays standing there, a suspicious look on his face.

“Do you even have a job?” Jeong Jeong says. “How are you possibly affording this much tea?” The overly-frequent customer looks up at him, and then a little smirk curves the edge of his mouth.

“Wouldn’t you like to know tea boy?” 

_ Tea boy? TEA BOY?  _ Jeong Jeong is affronted. He is shocked. He is, quite frankly, a little red in the face. He’s so surprised at the comment that he has to pull up a chair and take a seat. 

The boy across from him looks satisfied, as if he’s won some sort of game. But if there’s one thing Jeong Jeong hates, it’s losing. He may be off of his game, and out of his usual territory. But he will not admit defeat. 

“You haven’t won,” he says defiantly, and with pride. He refuses to back down on this. 

“Oh, I think I’ve won. You’re sitting down with me, aren’t you?” 

“I’m taking a break.” 

“A break.” 

“A BREAK!” Jeong Jeong realizes his shouting has attracted the attention of other customers. He clears his throat and gestures dismissively with his hand as if to say ‘please carry on.’ The boy is smirking. 

Jeong Jeong looks him over. A country bumpkin no doubt, from the look of his clothes. But he’s carrying a sword.  _ No _ . Two swords. Interesting. His hands, which are grasped firmly around his tea cup, look rough. They’re blacksmith’s hands. 

“You’re a blacksmith,” Jeong Jeong announces. That’s right. He’s very clever. And knows everything. Take that. Intruding customer from hell. 

“I’m not, my father was though.” 

Oh. That’s no fun. He hates being wrong. But wait-

“Then you made those swords, or he did?” Jeong Jeong considers, that’s the most likely conclusion. 

“Those are sounding like first date questions to me.” 

Unfortunately this is not really something Jeong Jeong can argue about. He’s never had a first date. People don’t just walk up to your local firebending prodigy and ask them out. 

“You don’t even know my name.” Jeong Jeong settles for another tactic, a tried and true battle strategy:  _ changing the subject. _

“I bet lots of people know your name. I wanna know your smile.” 

The thing is. That isn’t  _ wrong. _ A lot of people do know Jeong Jeong’s name. There have been proclamations about him. Announcements of his success have spread far and wide into the provinces. His name carries weight. It’s practically famous. But he doesn’t really smile at people. He smiles at fire, or he did once. But that’s over now. Mostly. 

The way the boy says it is so earnest, genuine. Honest. If he knew who Jeong Jeong really was maybe he wouldn’t be so eager. 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. What’s your name?” 

“Piandao.” He says it so easily, carelessly almost, that Jeong Jeong wants to answer with his own name. Wants to tell the truth, even, and he hates that, hates how this random kid who seems to have nothing better to do with his time than sit in a tea shop is managing to get under his skin. 

“Jeo - Lee,” he says, and then feels stupid for even trying. 

“Jolee?” Piandao asks, looking skeptical. It isn’t a real name. 

“I mean. Lee. I forgot,” Jeong Jeong scrambles to explain. 

“You forget your own name?” Piandao says, and he reaches out to cover Jeong Jeong’s hand, tentatively, with his own. He hesitates for a moment, giving Jeong Jeong the chance to draw back. But when Jeong Jeong doesn’t pull back, Piandao seems relieved, and doesn’t move it again. 

At this point not only has Jeong Jeong forgotten his own name. He’s forgotten how to breathe. Because Piandao is holding his hand. He is holding his hand in the middle of a crowded tea shop. In broad daylight. In the middle of the day. Jeong Jeong’s a  _ firebender  _ but he’s never had his face feel this annoyingly warm. 

Without even meaning to, a whisper of steam comes out from Jeong Jeong’s other hand. Piandao sees it.  _ Well, that’s it then.  _ Jeong Jeong knows whatever this little escapade was. It’s over. He’s outed himself as a bender working in a tea shop. As far as he knows, most benders worth their salt are part of the military these days. Accidentally bending steam isn’t very common. And given by how he flirts, Piandao is smart. He’ll figure this out. 

As if on cue, right along with his body’s natural stress response, another tiny blast of steam curls around Jeong Jeong’s own fingers.  _ Spirits, stop it.  _

But Piandao only grips his hand tighter. The one on the table. Not the steaming one. It’s a strange gesture. Especially from someone that hasn’t known him very long. He’s not sure what to do with it. He feels angry for a second, but then the feeling subsides as he looks at the look on the other boy’s face. He’s smiling. 

“Who are you really?” Jeong Jeong asks. 

“Dinner, tonight. At the Golden Lion-Turtle. Seven. If you want to find out.” Piandao empties his tea cup in a single gulp, lets go of Jeong Jeong’s hand, and walks away. 

The door clicks on his way out. Jeong Jeong’s mad at first, because hey, he didn’t even pay. But then he notices that as Piandao had let go of his hand, he had also quickly turned it over and slipped coins into it.  _ He’s good. _

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt, meeting him tonight at the Golden Lion-Turtle. Just to clash wits again. Besides, he’s always liked their gyoza. 

**Author's Note:**

> we're on tumblr: abby [@pianjeong](https://pianjeong.tumblr.com) and sonny [@itszukkatime](https://itszukkatime.tumblr.com) or drop us a line here! <3


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